


Hope in the Ascendancy

by helsinkibaby



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Comment Fic, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Het, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 12:59:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13236249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: Luke finds something he’d lost.





	Hope in the Ascendancy

**Author's Note:**

> Theme : free for all  
> Prompt : Any, any, red hoodie  
> https://comment-fic.livejournal.com/876674.html?thread=106163074#t106163074

"So that's where it went."

After a week on the road, sleeping in a very uncomfortable bed in a motel room shared with Reid who talked in his sleep about things Luke couldn't even pretend to understand, Luke had been looking forward to getting home. By which of course, he meant back to Garcia - they split nights between their two apartments but of the two, he couldn't deny that hers was far more welcoming, far more homely. Garcia couldn't deny that fact either, and didn't, using language that was at least as colourful as her outfits and all Luke could do was smile and take it, every so often interjecting an objection just to get her dander up that little bit more - call it a throwback to their first few months of knowing one another, but he did love to see the colour rise in her cheeks as she got more and more passionate about her argument. 

On the plane ride home, his thoughts had been full of Garcia’s apartment, where he could enjoy a long hot shower followed by a night in a decent bed, Garcia in his arms for either or both of those activities. On entering her bedroom, however, his attention had been diverted by a very familiar looking red hoodie, draped over the chair in the corner of her room. 

"I've been looking for this for weeks," he said, picking it up, holding it out in front of him to make sure that it was indeed the one he'd been missing. "Where did you find it?"

Turning to Garcia, he expected a pithy comment about him never cleaning up after himself and wasn't that just like a man. Instead, he saw her shift on her feet, saw her eyes dart around the room like she was looking for an escape hatch. "You left it here," she said, her voice halting, and if he didn't know better, he'd say that she was nervous. "I forgot all about it..." 

Her voice trailed off as she pushed a lock of hair back behind her ear. That action dislodged the bright orange clip that he'd bought for her on a whim when he'd passed by a market stall in town a few weeks back, and she muttered something under her breath, half turned away from him to look in the mirror and detangle it. 

He could still see her face in the mirror though and he still knew that something wasn't quite right. "Penelope..." He said her name slowly, thinking out loud as the realisation came to him. "If you forgot about it... why is it out here in plain sight?" 

Because even with the colour in the room, she still shouldn't have missed the bright red. 

A thought occurred to him, a hope rather than an expectation, but when Garcia turned to him, her hair now loose, her cheeks were as red as the hoodie he was holding in his hands. "Geez, enough with the third degree already, what, you didn't get enough of interrogating people on the road?" Her eyes flashed as she spoke but not with anger. He'd seen her angry, he'd seen her frustrated and he knew that this was not that. 

This was flustered. This was her being forced to admit something she didn’t want to admit. 

"Penelope..." He said her name again, more quietly this time and she actually huffed, threw her hands up in the air. 

"I wear it sometimes, OK?" She said the words in a rush, like she wanted to admit them as fast as possible. "Sometimes it gets chilly around here at night, and it's nice and warm." She shrugged her shoulders as she looked down and he dropped the hoodie where he'd found it, crossed the room to stand in front of her, resting his hands on her shoulders, hope suddenly very much in the ascendancy. "Besides," she muttered and if he wasn't standing inches away from her, he wouldn't have heard her, "it smells like you." 

There was nothing Luke could say to that - well, actually, there were quite a few things he could say. He just didn't say any of them, instead choosing to lean forward and brush his lips across Garcia's forehead. "I missed you too," he told her and the tiniest of giggles passed her lips as she slipped her arms around his waist. 

"I'll put it in the laundry, have it back for you in a couple of days," she told him, sounding anything but enthusiastic about it and he figured it wasn't just because laundry was the number one most hated chore in the life of Penelope Garcia. 

"Nah, you keep it," he told her and from the way her eyes brightened, you'd think he'd just told her the secrets of the universe. Or at least Prince William's telephone number. "It probably looks better on you anyway." 

"Well, duh." Her eyes were dancing as she looked up at him and all he could do was laugh but only for a moment as a new thought struck him. 

"How about you model it for me?" he suggested, his fingers sliding across her dress, finding the tag of her zipper and pulling experimentally. 

Garcia's smile grew wider as the zipper moved lower. "I thought you'd never ask..."


End file.
